Javascript vulnerability in Adobe Reader

A recent javascript vulnerability has been discovered in Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat. This public and confirmed Adobe bug would allow running malicious javascript code just by opening a PDF document. So yes, you computer could be infected by a virus or trojan if you open a PDF file using Adobe Acrobat or Reader.

The bad news are that this malicious javascript code is hard to detect inside a PDF file, so most antivirus software won't be able to prevent the exploit by scanning PDF files. On top of that, Adobe won't be releasing a patch for this bug till January 2010, so the PDF readers would be vulnerable to exploits and so on.

But there are still good news: just disable JavaScript in Adobe Reader to prevent this exploit. That simple trick will keep your computer safe from virus and malware in PDF files.

How to disable javascript in Adobe Reader

Disabling Javascript in Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat is very simple. Just select the Edit >Preferences menu, and click the JavaScript option. Then just uncheck the Enable Acrobat Javascript box at the top.

And that's it: unchecking this option as in the image above will prevent the malicious Javascript code from exploiting this recent vulnerability of Adobe Reader.